Getting into D’Antoni Ball
So, I started really watching basketball again a while back, and Mike D’Antoni’s teams always caught my eye. You know, the fast pace, the shooting, all that stuff. Looked fun, looked effective, especially with those Suns teams and later the Rockets. I got curious, not just as a fan, but thinking about how it actually works on the court day-to-day.
I was helping out coaching a local league team around that time. Just guys who liked to play, nothing too serious, but we wanted to try something different. So I thought, hey, why not try and bring in some of D’Antoni’s ideas? Seemed straightforward enough on paper.
Trying to Make it Work
First thing was the pace. Push the ball. Push, push, push. That was the mantra. We started doing drills focused on getting the rebound and immediately looking for an outlet pass, guys sprinting down the wings. The idea was ‘Seven Seconds or Less’, right? Get a shot up quickly.
Then came the spacing and shooting. I tried to get the guys to understand:
- Spread the floor. Don’t clog the paint.
- If you’re open from three, take the shot. Don’t hesitate.
- Move the ball quickly. Pass, pass, pass until someone’s open.
Sounds simple, but man, it was tougher than I thought. Habits are hard to break. Guys were used to slowing it down, walking the ball up, looking for post-ups. Getting them to constantly run and make quick decisions was a real challenge.
What Really Happened
The first few practices were chaos. Lots of turnovers, guys getting tired real fast, lots of missed shots because they weren’t used to shooting so quickly or off the dribble. Some guys grumbled a bit, felt like we were just running around without a plan sometimes. Conditioning became a huge factor, way more than I initially expected. You can’t play fast if you’re gassed after two trips down the court.
We also didn’t have a Steve Nash or a James Harden, obviously. You need players with specific skills to really make that system sing – great passers, guys who can create their own shot, and consistent shooters. We had decent players, but forcing them into that specific mold wasn’t always working. We had to adjust. We couldn’t just copy-paste.
We ended up keeping the emphasis on pushing the pace when we could, but we had to be more selective. We encouraged the open threes, but also reminded guys to take good shots, not just fast ones. We kept the floor spaced, which did open up driving lanes, even if we weren’t bombing threes like the Rockets.
Final Thoughts
So, did we become the Phoenix Suns overnight? Nope. Not even close. But the whole process was interesting. It made me appreciate how much goes into a specific system beyond just the X’s and O’s. It’s about personnel, conditioning, buy-in, and adapting the principles to the players you actually have. Trying to implement that D’Antoni style, even bits of it, taught me a lot about the practical side of coaching and how different theory is from practice on the ground. It wasn’t a failure, but it definitely wasn’t the smooth ride I first imagined watching it on TV.
